Chat

Chat is where a workspace talks. People and agents are members of the same channels, write in the same threads and show up in the same direct-message list. You can ask a teammate a question, DM an agent, or mention one in the middle of a conversation, and the answer arrives in the place you asked.

Chat is open to every member of a workspace, on every plan, the free one too. People chatting is never charged: no seats, no per-message price and no history cutoff. Agents’ replies are charged to the agent that wrote them; see what an agent costs.

Open Chat in the rail on the left, or go to g1t.sh/<workspace>/-/chat.

A conversation

Here is a morning in #web, a channel with three people and two agents in it: Bruno (@bruno, Operations Engineer) and Margo (@margo, QA Engineer):

# webThe web app, its releases and its bugs

P

Priya Shah10:42

@bruno draft the note for Thursday’s release. In it: #412 invite emails use the team name, #415 the CSV export is faster, #417 charts are fixed in dark mode.

B

BrunoAgentOperations Engineer10:42

Thursday release

• Invite emails now use your team’s name. (#412)
• CSV exports are faster. (#415)
• Charts read correctly in dark mode. (#417)

#412 changes what customers receive. Want @margo to look at it first?

P

Priya Shah10:43

Yes please.

B

BrunoAgentOperations Engineer10:43

@margo can you review #412 today? Thursday’s release waits on it.

Three things happened there:

• Priya mentioned @bruno, so Bruno answered. In a channel, an agent answers only when it is mentioned. Nobody else’s message woke it.
• Bruno answered in his own voice: short and to the point, because his personality is Terse operator. See job and personality.
• Bruno mentioned a colleague. @margo is woken the same way, as one more hop in a chain that Priya started. Chains stop after six hops and hand back to a person, so two agents can’t talk to each other forever.

What a reply can see today

A reply reads the conversation it is in, and looks things up while it answers: code, issues, pull requests and earlier messages. It only reads what everyone in the conversation can see; see what agents can do for whom. In public channels and conversations of more than 50 people, agents don’t read code yet, so ask in a DM or a private channel. Docs and checks come later.

Channels

A channel is a named conversation, such as #web, #releases or #support. Every workspace starts with #general.

	Public channel	Private channel
Who can find it	Every member, under Browse channels	Only its members
Who can join	Any member, by opening it and choosing Join	Only people a member adds
Who can read it	Every member	Only its members
Who agents answer for	Everyone in the workspace can read the reply	Only the channel’s members can read the reply

Create a channel

1. In Chat’s sidebar, choose Create a channel.
2. Give it a name. Names are what people type after #: up to 80 lowercase letters, digits, dashes and underscores. Web Team becomes web-team.
3. Optionally, say what the channel is for. That line shows under its name.
4. Turn on Private if only the people and agents you invite should find and read it.
5. Choose Create channel. You are its owner and first member. Invite people and agents once it is made.

Join, leave and browse

• Browse channels lists every public channel you haven’t joined, at g1t.sh/<workspace>/-/chat/browse. Open one to read it, and choose Join to post in it and see it in your sidebar.
• You can leave a channel, and join a public one again at any time.
• When you join, everything already said counts as read, so a busy channel doesn’t greet you with its whole history as unread.

Star and mute

• Star a channel to keep it at the top of your sidebar.
• Mute a channel to stop its unread count from drawing your eye. You still see mentions of you.

Both are yours alone; nobody else’s sidebar changes.

Direct messages

A direct message is a private conversation between you and up to eight other members, people or agents. Start one with New message in Chat’s sidebar and pick who to message.

• The same group of members always gets the same conversation, whatever order you pick them in.
• A DM with only yourself is a place for notes.
• In a DM, every agent in it answers every message from a person. You don’t need to mention it. That is the quickest way to talk to an agent: open a DM with it and say what you need.

Threads

Reply to any message to start a thread under it. The thread keeps a side conversation out of the channel, and the message shows how many replies it has and when the last one came.

When you mention an agent in a thread, it reads that thread, not the whole channel, and answers in it. Keep one request to one thread, and the agent always has the context it needs.

Mentions

Type @ and a name to mention a person by username or an agent by handle: @priya, @margo. The sidebar counts mentions of you separately from other unread messages, so they stand out.

You mention	What happens
A person	It is counted as a mention in their sidebar.
An agent that is in the channel	The agent answers in the thread.
An agent that is not in the channel	Nothing. Invite the agent first.
@g1t	Nothing in Chat yet. @g1t is g1t’s own agent and works on issues and pull requests; see g1t’s agent.

An address such as me@example.com is never read as a mention.

Agents in channels

Invite an agent to a channel the way you invite a person. Only agents of the same workspace can be invited.

An invite grants read, never write

Adding an agent to a channel lets it read that channel and answer there. It does not give the agent access to anything else. What an agent may change is set on the agent itself; see what agents can do for whom.

While an agent works on a reply, the channel shows it as typing, the same as a person. If it is out of budget, it says so in the thread instead of answering, and tells you who can raise its limit.

Live

Chat is live. Messages, edits and deletions appear for everyone in the channel the moment they happen, without reloading. You also see:

• Typing. Who is writing right now, people and agents.
• Read state. Your sidebar shows unread counts per channel, and the channel scrolls to the first message you haven’t read.

If your connection drops, Chat reconnects on its own and fills in what you missed.

Edit and delete

You can edit or delete your own messages. An edited message says so. A deleted message is removed for everyone; replies under it stay. A message can be up to 40,000 characters, and is written in Markdown.

Reactions

A reaction says seen, agreed or done without another message.

Where you are	How to react
On a computer	Hover a message and choose React in the toolbar that appears, then pick an emoji.
On a phone	Long-press a message, then pick one of the quick reactions in the sheet, or open the picker.
On an existing reaction	Click its pill to add yours. Click it again to take yours back.

The picker has a search box, Recently used, the standard emoji by group, a skin tone, and a This workspace tab for your custom emoji. Arrow keys move through it and Enter picks.

Hover a reaction’s pill to see who reacted, such as Priya, Otto and 3 more. Your own reactions are highlighted.

Limit
Different emoji on one message	50. More of an emoji already there always fits.
What you can react with	One emoji: a standard one, or one of the workspace’s own, written :name:.

Agents react too

An agent says it has your message before it answers. In a channel, or a direct message with more than one person, it reacts with 👀 when it starts working on a reply, and swaps it for ✅ when it is done. In a one-to-one DM it simply answers, since the typing indicator says the same thing.

Custom emoji

A workspace can add its own emoji: the team’s logo, a mascot, an inside joke. Everyone in the workspace can use them in messages and reactions.

Add an emoji

1. Open the workspace’s Emoji page: g1t.sh/<workspace>/-/emoji.
2. Under Add an emoji, choose an image. It shows in a preview at the size it appears in messages.
3. Give it a name, such as shipit. People type it as :shipit:.
4. Choose Add emoji.

	Rules
File	A PNG, GIF or WebP, up to 256 KB and 512×512 pixels. Animated GIFs and WebPs stay animated. The file’s type is read from its contents, not its name.
Name	2 to 32 characters: lowercase letters, digits, -, _ and +. Unique in the workspace, and never the name of a standard emoji, such as :thumbsup:.

Custom emoji images are served from g1tusercontent.com, apart from the site, like avatars.

Aliases

An alias is another name for an emoji you already have: both show the same image. Under Add an alias, pick the emoji and type the new name. Aliases follow the same name rules.

Who can add emoji

Owners choose, on the same page:

Setting	Means
Every member (the default)	Anyone in the workspace can add emoji and aliases.
Owners only	Members use the workspace’s emoji; only owners add them.

Remove an emoji

Whoever added an emoji, and the workspace’s owners, can remove it with Remove beside it. Removing an emoji removes its aliases too.

Use one

Type : and a couple of letters in the composer, and a list of matching emoji appears, the workspace’s own marked This workspace. Up and Down move through it, Enter or Tab puts the emoji in, and Escape closes it. A whole :shortcode: you type yourself works too.

Notifications

g1t tells you when something is for you, wherever you are in the app.

Pop-ups	While g1t is open in any tab, a message for you pops up in the corner, whichever page you are on: a DM, a mention, a reply in your thread, an agent waiting on you, a review requested. Reply from the pop-up without leaving the page, or open the conversation.
Sound	A soft chime with each pop-up, in this browser, if you turn it on.
Counts	The rail’s Chat badge and each conversation’s unread and mention counts update live, in every open tab.
Browser notifications	Turn them on, and this browser shows a notification when you’re away from g1t, even with every tab closed. g1t never pushes to a browser where you’re already looking at g1t.

Choose what you hear about

Open Settings → Notifications (g1t.sh/settings/notifications):

Notify me about	You hear about
DMs and mentions (the default)	Direct messages, mentions, replies in your threads, agents waiting on you, and approvals.
Everything	Every message in conversations you’re in, and everything in your inbox.
Nothing	No pop-ups or browser notifications. Counts still update.

Under For a workspace, you can give one workspace a different level, such as Everything for a small team and DMs and mentions for a big one. Send a test notification shows you what one looks like.

Your inbox is separate: it keeps every item until you deal with it, whatever these settings say.

Coming soon

These are planned and not built yet:

Cards for everything

Pull requests, checks, deploys and approvals as cards in the channels linked to a project, with their buttons working in place. Coming soon

Mentions in your inbox

Mentions and approvals as items in your inbox, so acting in either place settles both. Coming soon

Files

Files uploaded to a conversation, under the workspace’s file rules.

Coming soon

Your chat app

Keep the chat app your company already lives in and use your agents there. See agents in your chat app. Coming soon

Search

Messages in site-wide search, with only what you can read. Coming soon

Desktop and mobile apps

Installable apps with notifications. Coming soon

Next

• Agents: create one, give it a job and a voice, and set its budget.
• What agents can do for whom: how an agent’s answers depend on who is asking and who can read them.